Overview

CharGer is a conceptual graph editor intended to support research projects
and education. Its current version is primarily an editor to create visual
display of graphs. It is deliberately and explicitly a research tool
meant for conceptual graph researchers to explore implementation issues
in conceptual graph interfaces.
Using the software will require some familiarity with conceptual graphs,
including knowing about concepts and relations, type hierarchies and
type/referent pairs. Knowing about actors will also be very helpful.
For information about conceptual graphs, see the Web page: http://conceptualgraphs.org

Custom colors and fonts for all graph objects, and the ability to set one’s
own default color scheme.

Compatibility

CharGer's layout information
is temporarily unavailable when
using CGIF files. This problem is being worked on
and will be fixed in the near future. If layout information is important
to you, then use the CharGer format (*.cgx) for the graphs and simply
save them as CGIF when you need to.

Portability to all major platforms that support the required version of Java (see above)

Ability to save and retrieve graphs from files, in an XML format
(*.cgx)

Saving of graphs in CGIF form

View the CGIF form of graphs without layout information

Paraphrase graph into English (other languages in preparation)

A Wordnet interface is included, where a synset (word-sense)
entry can be added to any graph node (requires separate installation
of Wordnet 2.0)

Actors/Databases

Activation of some built-in actors, including several primitive ones
for arithmetic and elementary operations.

Capability to automatically create a skeleton graph from a database
suitable for providing database semantics.

A plugin interface whereby developers can create their own actors
and add them to the CharGer.jar file.

A displaybar actor that will display a referent value in its own
graphical display window.

Features not currently supported

The following features are not currently supported; plans are
to implement them in the future.

Validation facilities

Support for type/relation/actor definitions using graphs as the specification

Why the name "CharGer"?

The University of Alabama in Huntsville has several sports teams nicknamed
the "Chargers". A catchy name at that. Since the "CG" initials appear
in it, it seemed a natural choice. And I like the image of forging ahead,
attacking research problems and leading the way. So there it is.

Screen Shot

Download / Install / Run

System Requirements

The minimum requirements for CharGer are:

Software supporting a Java Virtual Machine (VM)
such as found in Sun's JDK or JRE, at the version shown above. This
can be obtained for free from java.oracle.com.

A color monitor,
800 x 600 resolution or higher.

CharGer has been tested on Windows, LINUX and Mac OS X platforms.

Download

Using CharGer requires availability of a Java package, at the version shown above. If you have previous versions of CharGer installed,
your previous graph
files are fully compatible with the new version,
but you will have to copy your graphs into the folders expected by CharGer.
Do the following:

Running CharGer

To run CharGer, you must have Java already installed on your machine.
There are three options for running CharGer (four if you're using Mac
OS X):

double-click the CharGer.jar file

run the .jar file from the command line

run CGMain using the .jar file as the classpath

Double-click the CharGer.jar file: To quickly tell whether
or not Java is already installed, just double-click on the CharGer4.jar
file and see if it runs. If it does, then you can probably skip the next
paragraph. But make sure you're running the version shown above
(use "java -version" to
find out what version you have).

On a Windows OS, this is called java.exe. You should be using Java's
JDK at the version shown above. It is possible that earlier versions will
work in some cases, but since the
JDK is freely available, it
is probably a good idea to get it first and install it before running
CharGer. Follow its instructions for installing Java,

From the command prompt on Windows or a shell prompt under LINUX, make
the "top
level" directory your current directory, and type the following:

java -jar CharGer4.jar

CharGer's main class is called charger.CGMain. If the above command
doesn't work, on
most systems, the following command should also work:

java -cp CharGer.jar charger.CGMain

CharGer has been tested extensively on a Mac, and to some extent under
Windows 7/8 and Linux (Ubuntu). Feedback to the author
will be most appreciated.

Documentation

Source Code: CharGer is an open source project in sourceforge. See
its Project Page for more information.

Licensing

CharGer is a copyrighted work. All CharGer software
files, its associated graphical files available within this software
are protected under the Lesser GNU Public License (LGPL). If you are
not familiar with the terms of this license, see http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-license.php (or
many other places).

The author of the work is Harry S. Delugach (hereinafter "Author").

Information provided in this document, the manual, and the CharGer software
is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied,
including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability,
fitness, for a particular purpose and freedom from infringement. The
Author disclaims all warranties with regard to this software, including
all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness, in no event shall
the author, the University of Alabama in Huntsville or any of its sponsors be liable for any special, indirect
or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss
of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence
or other tortuous action, arising out of or in connection with the use
or performance of this software. Reference in CharGer to any specific
commercial products, process, service, manufacturer, or company does
not constitute its endorsement or recommendation by anyone.